Customer Reviews

Spore (Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear, Book 9)

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What is "Spore?" It's something beyond your imagination! When I read this, I couldn't believe what I was reading--I had never thought of something like "Spore." When you read about this, you'll probably be just as shocked as I was. This book is full of surprises. I would recommend this book for children under 11 years old, simply because older kids might be slightly bored by it, although this book has few flaws.

The Shroud needs a special mineral so Hoole,tash,and zak pull into the nearest planet...Ithor.But they dont have that mineral.But a miner named hodge does.But hodge wants them to explore a cave he found for the mineral.So they go down there,sounds like a fair trade right?WRONG.There is a evil thing in that cave.A thing called...Spore!

While this book involves the force, a reference to Jedi Knights, an ambitious "servant" of the Emperor, asteroid dwelling space slugs and Imperial storm troopers, those are the only elements of the Star Wars storyline that are used. None of the main characters in the movie series is mentioned. Thirteen-year-old Tash Arranda is traveling with her brother Zak and her uncle Hoole and they need a mineral for their ship that can only be acquired in a mining colony located in an asteroid field. Fandomar is an Ithorian, one of the creatures appearing in the classic bar scene in episode IV of the Star Wars saga. The Ithorians are the creatures with the flat heads and bulbous eye sockets and a hologram of an Ithorian appears on the front cover.
An ancient evil known as Spore was imprisoned on an asteroid in the mining colony and when the tomb is opened, Spore infects the miner and boards the ship. Spore is able to send out tendrils that infect others and bends them to its' will. The evil Jerec, the servant of the Emperor, tries to reach a deal with Spore so that Jerec will be able to overthrow the Emperor and seize power. When Zak and Hoole are brought under the control of Spore, Tash finds herself in serious trouble, but her basic capability of using the force saves her until she can lull Jerec and Spore into a trap that damages Jerec's Star Destroyer and sends Spore into a quiescent state. All creatures that were under the control of Spore and that were not killed are released and their normal personalities emerge.
This is an excellent story for young people that continues and expands the Star Wars saga. There are many ways to encourage young people to read and they will find this book interesting and sufficiently challenging in terms of reading level. That is a combination to be commended and encouraged.

The most galling part of reading Spore is the knowledge that it could have been executed well. Bookish Tash Arranda makes a lovably imperfect heroine. She's one of few female characters in the Expanded Universe who manages to function without a curvaceous figure and long, flowing hair. Friendless and fragile, she complains that she was never any good at sports back on her homeworld of Alderaan. Now, I admire female characters courageous enough to admit imperfection, but let's cut to the chase: does the potentially brilliant characterization of Tash make Spore in any way worthwhile? Um, no. Arguably the most stylistically jumbled of the Galaxy of Fear books, Spore blunders along as inelegantly as a stampeding ostrich. Actual description and exposition are so intermittent as to suggest that the entire book is merely an expanded outline. Inconclusive chase scenes muddle and delay the execution of the story, drawing it to lengths that seem interminable despite the huge print and small pages. Now that Borborygmus Gog is (finally!) dead, we must endure the arbitrary insertion of Jerec, the fallen Miraluka Jedi from the Dark Forces video games. Despite the head-bashingly overwhelming implications that Jerec is pure evil, he comes off as simply fiendishly petty. Tash Arranda briefly wonders at the Dark Jedi's motivation, but shrugs and satisfies herself that "Imperials are just mean". Tash's indifference mirrors the readers': who really cares why these monotonously malicious antagonists act as they do? Suffice it to say that they're incarnations of melodramatic evil. But, naturally, Jerec's dastardly plots all crumple like tin-foil before the determination of a thirteen-year-old girl. In classic Galaxy of Fear style, the plot is resolved rapidly: the careful application of several large explosions basically obviates the need for serious denouement. Still, the complete lack of resolution is gratifying: the reader is spared further justifications of the novel's irrational pseudo-science. You see, beyond its haphazard literary structure, Spore makes some rather Olympian leaps of internal logic. The protagonists' plans - especially for defeating the Spore entity - are merely ad hoc plot devices crafted to plug massive leaks in the storyline. Not that there's much storyline to leak. Our customary Galaxy of Fear Life Lesson of the Month never quite solidifies, although the author stabs vaguely in the direction of a moral. Tash's new understanding of the Force is summarized in a trite parenthetical note about how "the Force is always with us". As if that statement weren't theologically bare enough, the fact that it's inserted in parentheses in the midst of a battle scene rather trivializes the point. The transparent "mystery" subplot reads like the transcript of a bad Scooby-Doo episode: there's only one person who could possibly have committed the murders, and that person is repeatedly interrupted during suspicious activities - so, naturally, that person cannot be the murderer. Perhaps this clichéd "shocker ending" technique wouldn't be so obvious if John Whitman did not exert himself so strenuously in his attempts to misdirect the reader. When the author is yelling, "Look! Over here!" at the top of his lungs, most seasoned readers instinctively look in exactly the opposite direction. Despite its early promise, Spore is thoroughly meaningless trash the conclusion of which leaves no discernable impact upon the Star Wars universe.